I was up early today. When the hounds wanted out at 5am, I decided I would get some coffee, write and think. It’s the beginning of a quiet and reflective Sunday morning that Joell and I have been planning for a few days.

The last week has been difficult. It started close to our hearts, but trivial: the loss of our dear little pygmy goat, Chocolate, who had been a part of our Square Peg family for a decade. Then, when we were still a bit sad over our silly little goat, a young man killed 9 people after sitting in church with them for over an hour. It’s been reported that he’s confessed that he almost didn’t go through with it because they were so kind to him. That’s the kind of people he killed, people who showed nothing but kindness to a stranger.

Nothing is going to instantly fix this hole in my heart, calm the rage I feel, purge my disgust for the racists who fly that flag, but this morning we will take another step toward healing and spend the morning in celebration at Glide.

I took a break this afternoon while my old friend Cliff was here with his kids. Cliff and I fiddled with the repair project on my old turntable (more about that later) while the kids played my piano and guitar and took some photos of the horses.

Now I’m back into the WordPress hacking to get all my IndieWeb stuff set up just-so. This post is a test of my POSSE to Twitter and Facebook.

Yesterday was the day that John Gruber, one of my favorite tech writers, calls “Internet Jackass Day”. But among all the stupidity and annoyance are some gems. My favorite? This one, by the scientists at CERN:

I’m looking forward to the new book about Steve Jobs, coming in a few weeks. The Isaacson book was a disappointment, and this one seems (by reports) to do a much better job of capturing the man and the complexity of his story. As Tim Cook says in an interview with Fast Company:

II thought the [Walter] Isaacson book did him a tremendous disservice. It was just a rehash of a bunch of stuff that had already been written, and focused on small parts of his personality. You get the feeling that [Steve’s] a greedy, selfish egomaniac. It didn’t capture the person.

We interview dozens of homebrewers to find the very best to feature in Noble Brewer. Once we’ve selected our homebrewers, we work with a professional brewery to produce our homebrewers award winning recipes. Then when the beer’s ready, we combine all our homebrewer’s beers into a single shipment and deliver to you!

What’s interests me here is that Claude and Lauralynnn have identified a niche where people are passionate, both as consumers and as creators. I’ve only had a short conversation with them, but I’m impressed by how they are thinking about this market and I’ll be watching eagerly to see what they do with it.

Update: because I joined, I have a link for you to get the same special deal, even if you aren’t here at Launch Festival:

http://ctt.ec/ScMOU+

That will get you a special promotional price for your first month. Move quickly… the discount is reduced as more people join.